Dealing with Boisterously Irascible Men
by Cearlya
Summary: In which Hermione's apartment is simply far too small to hold all of Draco's hair care products for him to move in.
1. Prelude

Dealing with Boisterously Irascible Men

(1/?)

Part 7 of my Hermione/Draco AU, and while this is not necessary to read before, it explains a lot of backstory, most specifically, the sign. Story wise, it is about 4.5.

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Day one: The Bet

It was a quaint little apartment in the middle of down town London, and the noon sun barely kissing the foyer alights on the sign that reads in salutatory script, "Yes, I am dating Draco Malfoy. No, I will not answer any personal questions about it. However, should you require advice on how to deal with boisterously irascible men, please slip 10 quid and your address under the door and I'll be sure to get back to you. Probably when I need to rant."

Hermione, brown hair tucked up into a tight bun with several wisps of flyaway hair framing her face in a halo, sat comfortably in her pajamas on a large arm chair in her living room, enjoying the sun while she got some extra work done. Draco paced for a moment more before bounding over to her chair.

"I think I should move in." Draco said pompously, sitting down on the arm of her chair before draping himself over Hermione's shoulders.

"What?" Hermione asked, crossing her 't' carefully as her boyfriend smacked her elbow with his hand accidentally as he lounged.

"I think," Draco repeated in a drawl, making it quite clear that he was a bit put out that she wasn't paying much attention to him but was instead engrossed in her essay. "That I should move in."

"Why?" Hermione asked, placing her quill into her ink and turning her full attention to him. "My place is much smaller than yours."

"Yes, but you don't like the manor." Draco made a moue of disappointment.

"True." Hermione said, tipping her head back for Draco to properly despair at her hair as he attempted to run his fingers through it. "But I like my nice, clean bathroom."

"I could have a clean bathroom." Draco said, a bit miffed that she would think otherwise.

"Could, but won't, due to the fact that all your hair care products will simply not fit in my cupboards." Hermione said as Draco gave up on her hair and snuggled manfully into her shoulders. "Even if we stack them."

"I could cut back."

"I am not sure we could afford the therapy bills, darling." Hermione said, patting Draco's hand absently. Draco made a funny noise through his nose and Hermione had to restrain from giggling at it.

"I will not need _therapy_ for lack of proper hair care." Draco scoffed, sitting up straight on the arm of the chair.

"Fine then." Hermione countered, "A wager. If you can go an entire week without using a single product on your hair, you can move in with me."

"Not even shampoo?" Draco asked in a horrified whisper.

"One bottle of shampoo and only because by the end of the week you would start smelling rather like wet dog." Hermione conceded. "But I will keep it here so you don't cheat."

"Would I really cheat?" Draco asked, affronted.

"Absolutely." Hermione deadpanned, "In a heartbeat."

"Fair enough." Draco shrugged, secretly reveling in the fact that she knew him so well. He stood and struck a ridiculous pose. "Well then, fair lady, I accept your challenge!"

"That's lovely. Now, can I get back to my work?" Hermione asked, and Draco stood huffily for a moment before storming out the door and slamming it behind him. After he left, Hermione smiled and began to chuckle, knowing that it was dangerous to encourage him, but okay to laugh at her silly man when he was gone. That and she knew that he was probably listening at the keyhole, waiting for her laughter.

Draco returned with a large bottle of shampoo that had an unpronounceable name from somewhere in France that Hermione had never heard of. Clearly it was the pinnacle of hair care products. He closed his eyes as he handed it over.

"Darling, you have to let it go before I can put it in my shower." Hermione said, tugging at the bottle. Draco finally let it slip out of his fingers and Hermione smiled before whisking away the bottle to her shower.

"What about soap? Lotion? Shaving cream?" Draco asked, clutching at Hermione's arm.

"One of each." Hermione conceeded. "To be kept here with your shampoo."

"But my skin!" Draco wailed, continuing to clutch.

"Draco, you have lovely skin, you really don't have to all that much to it." Hermione said exasperatedly. Draco preened at the compliment as she paused to wrinkle her nose. "Though you're wretched at growing a beard so the shaving cream is a must."

"That would be because my hair is so beautifully blonde." Draco said icily, "Platinum if you prefer."

"Sure you don't go peroxide?" Hermione teased, "Will I start to see roots by the end of this week?"

Draco made a noise that was rather alarming and spun on his heel before slamming the door behind him. He opened the door again, frowning as he glared at the door. He slammed the door harder, clearly not satisfied with the force previously. Hermione merely smiled and pulled a book off the shelf to read, curling up in the large arm chair. He'd be back for dinner. He always was.


	2. Day 1 Morning

Dealing with Boisterously Irascible Men

Part 2 of ?

Disclaimer: I own the AU, not the characters I made to fit in it.

Day One- Morning

The next morning, Draco Apparated into Hermione's apartment with a loud crack. If anyone could make an Apparition seem sullen, Draco managed, slinking into her living room from the foyer with a peevish scowl. Hermione looked up from her cup of coffee blearily, blinking at him in the sunlight.

"What are you, oh. Yes." She muttered, running a hand through her hair, getting stuck it in a particularly nasty tangle.

"I am here to take my shower. As you can see, I have brought my soaps." Draco said loftily.

"That shouldn't be a plural, Draco." Hermione said, staring at the large package tucked under his arm.

"It is plural because I have needs, woman!" Draco yelped, pulling the package to his chest. He stared at her in defiance, putting the package on the table in front of her. He unpacked the box, pulling the soaps out to rest them on the table as if he were handling cherished artifacts. There were three, one light blue and boxy, one a crumbly light green and one pearl pink and smooth. He laid them out in a semicircle and pointed to the one after another. "Face, body and then the one that smells good that goes last over all of it."

"Are you serious?" Hermione asked, staring at him. He had spent a couple of nights over, but he'd always gone home to take his shower and now she knew why. His neuroses were apparent in his showering needs and she would have laughed had she not been exceptionally tired. She had forgotten how insane he was.

"I am deadly serious, woman." Draco said, crossing his arms. He firmed his lips and stood his ground, his soaps were sacred.

"You are insane." Hermione smiled, stepping up to Draco and pecked his cheek with a kiss.

"So says the woman that sniffs books when she's stressed." Draco raised an eyebrow, cocking his head down towards her.

"It's very therapeutic." Hermione replied, going up on her tip toes to kiss him.

"Much as this is lovely, I need a shower." Draco said, rubbing Hermione's arms gently. "And you need to finish breakfast."

"Yes, I know. You have fifteen minutes." Hermione sang as she twirled away towards the kitchen. Draco stared at her for a moment, judging if she were serious or not, before grabbing his soaps and dashing for her bathroom, the door snapping closed behind him. The sound of the water started almost immediately and Hermione finished her drink before her fireplace let out the tell tale jingle of an incoming message in the fire. Hermione fished her housecoat out of her room before answering, leaning towards the fire, waving aside the protections with a flutter of her hand. Kingsley's head popped into view.

"Yes, sir?" Hermione said, sitting in front of the fire. She frowned. "I do believe I checked the 'no' box on the application when asked if I wanted to be called at home for news."

"Draco there?" Kingsley asked, peering into her apartment. Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I need to speak with him immediately."

"Do you expect him to be?" She asked blandly, her face innocent.

"Yes. You're not so secret affair was the gossip of the entire floor when I found him naked on your desk." Kingsley looked disapprovingly down his nose at her and she merely smiled and shrugged. That was her Draco all right. "That folder hid nothing, and I tried to burn my brain afterward to no avail."

"Sir, what was so urgent that you called me at my house before work?" Hermione asked, her patience wearing thin.

"I was hoping to catch Draco before he left for the day, in order to discuss something of a rather sensitive nature." Kingsley said, stroking his goatee deliberately.

"Could I swear that this is not what it looks like?" Hermione asked, propping her head up on one hand fist.

"Not and have me believe it." Kingsley retorted, his white teeth showing up starkly against his dark face in a grin.

"Done!" Draco's proud exclamation was surrounded by a wafting smell of flowers and followed by a shriek as he saw the head in the fire. He dove under the counter. Rising from under the counter top, she could hear a wail, "Kingsley saw me naked _again_! You have betrayed me!"

"Draco, you are wearing a towel." Hermione pointed out, and a loud cry of wretched psychological agony was Draco's only response.

Hermione buried her head in her hands with a laugh. Tucking her housecoat around her, she stood. "Well, I have to continue getting ready for work, so I will leave you boys alone. Kingsley, expect my report on your desk first thing when I get there."

Hermione took her shower and exited the bathroom fully dressed just in case, and found Draco sitting in front of the fire wrapped in her tablecloth like it was a toga, her dishes that were previously on the table stacked neatly on the counter. She took a moment to put them away with a swish of her wand before standing beside the fire with a tapping foot.

"Sorry to interrupt, but if you wish me to get to work, you have to let me through or tell me where a place to Apparate is open." Hermione pursed her lips. "I'd rather not splinch myself, you see."

"Use my private spot in my office, you do work next door." Kingsley shrugged his muscular shoulders with a grace that belied his thick stature.

"Have you cleaned off the papers?" Hermione asked mildly, recalling a large stack of papers that she would likely slip on were she to actually do as he suggested.

"Oh. Well, hang about and I'll get it ." Kingsley vanished from view and Hermione took a moment to give her fiancee a quick kiss.

"Make sure the china gets back in the cupboard and if you need to stay for lunch there is some stuff for sandwiches in the cooler, if you get a bit peckish." Hermione instructed, knowing that he would eat through the groceries she had planned for dinner if she didn't identify readily available alternatives.

"Ace." Draco replied, allowing himself to be distracted from the fire. He draped the sheet more securely around him while Kingsley was gone, pausing only to drag her down into his lap for a tight hug. Hermione liked the way that her tan legs, even tightly encased in her tight pencil skirt, could easily lay akimbo over the bumpy hills and valleys of his sheet covered lap. He put his forehead to hers and then touched their noses together gently. "I'll do this, Hermione. I'll do this because I want build a life with you and you can't live in the manor."

"I know." Hermione smiled and bumped her nose back to his. "I believe in you."

"And I believe that I have to find a person to obliviate me right away." Kingsley said, having returned from cleaning off the Apparition point.

"Hush Kingsley." Hermione levered herself out his lap, standing and brushing her skirt free of wrinkles. "Kingsley. If you do not wish to keep walking in on inappropriate moments, then I would suggest to stop showing up in inappropriate places."

With a sharp crack, Hermione vanished, and he saw her cross the room on the other side of the fire. Draco watched her walk through door, enjoying her sashay across the floor and out the door.

"Cheeky!" Kingsley, shouted after her, frowning, he turned back to Draco. "She's not even afraid of me at all."

"Nope." Draco said, grinning at the older black man.

"She's going to be Minister of Magic one day."

"Probably." Draco agreed amiably. "She's terrifyingly sharp, would you want to stand up to her?"

"Never." Kingsley shivered.

"I shall be her trophy husband and never have to work again." Draco said dramatically, announcing his secret plans gleefully. "In the meantime, you were saying?"

"Did you do something different to your hair?" Kingsley asked, noticing that it wasn't slicked down to his head and the smile fell off Draco's face.

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Reviews are love!


	3. Day 1 DayEvening

Dealing with Boisterously Irascible Men

Or A Practice so Pleasurable

3/?

Day 1- Day/Evening

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That day at work, one of the secretaries tried to jump Draco due to his new floppy locks, a diversion from the hair style he had worn for the past few years and he had to politely remind her that he had a girlfriend who was terrifyingly good at curses after a small panic attack from the overwhelming smell of the secretary's hair product. He had to be quite firm with the second, and by the time he reached his own private office, he was quite desperate to escape, throwing himself against the back of his door with his chest heaving from his sprint into his office. Behind the door he could still hear some disgruntled murmuring but as it was moving away and not attempting to break the door down he did his best to calm his thumping heart. He turned to Gertrude, his trusty assistant who was absolutely devoted to her husband and old enough to be his great grandmother while still being the absolute epitome of professionalism and efficiency such as making sure that a steaming cup of tea was on his desk fixed exactly the way that he liked it, two sugars, a dash of cream and a splash of milk, and said, "Goodness me, Gertrude, I think the secretaries have finally succumbed to their lust for me and lost it. We may have to fire the lot."

"Sir," Gertrude replied, wearily shifting the papers on her desk, ignoring him entirely. Gertrude had been with him since the beginning when he hired her for her disapproving stare that reminded him so much of Hermione, making it clear to Draco that she had the backbone and fortitude to put up with him for more than six months which was the previous record for any other assistant. "I do believe that it is your new hair. Fix that and the girls should go back to normal."

"But I can't!" Draco wailed dramatically, turning to deliberately lock the door before pacing to his seat. Gertrude merely fixed her disapproving stare on him and let it simmer without saying a word. Draco continued on in a small, wibbly voice, "I promised Hermione."

"Well then." Gertrude said, sliding her papers into her briefcase and making as if to leave. Gertrude respected Hermione and was very supportive of his relationship with her, if not his increase in flamboyancy after their relationship began. It was she that had to constantly be ordering flowers for the girl, but she did appreciate Draco's renewed determination in the work force.

"Where are you going?" Draco called as she escaped through the fire doors, wandering back and forth from his desk, bewildered like a chick that just lost it's mother hen.

"Home. There is no way that I am going to be able to work in this office today. I would suggest that you take a sick day as well, giving them time to acclimate to the new hair." Gertrude's words were as final as the door clicking shut behind her. Draco grabbed the stack of reports that loomed on his desk and fled out the fire doors as well, Apparating to Hermione's flat because it was closer and had a particularly squashy chair that he liked.

When Hermione arrived home, he had pulled a table over to the squashy chair and was spread out on that and the couch, parchment hovering in three dimensional stacks to the ceiling as he sorted his paperwork. Draco's wand was sticking up out of the cushions and he was fast asleep, tucked into the crease of the chair with a face, lips pursed and childish innocence with a foot twitching idly in sleep. Hermione couldn't help but smile as she hung her keys on the peg next to the one that had Draco's name on top of it, burned into the wood by an irritated Draco when she threatened to take his keys away if he decided to fill her apartment with flowers one more bloody time.

Hermione waded through the papers, brushing them aside as she tried to reach her boyfriend. When she finally reached him, a beach of tranquility in the chaos of floating paperwork, she reached out careful fingers to plug his nose with her forefinger and thumb. He batted at her hand ineffectually, and the smile turned into an outright grin of smugness as his eye did that little twitchy thing that he always did right before he woke up. She held on a moment more and he surged upward, gasping, as she startled him out of sleep. He blinked sleepily for a moment before snaking out an arm to pull her into his lap inelegantly. Hermione laughed and tried to position herself so she wasn't half sprawled on his legs and finally managed to hook her legs over arm of the chair with her back pressed against the other, tucked securely in Draco's lap.

"Ello dahling." Draco drawled into her neck sleepily. Hermione scooped his hair away from where it tickled her shoulder, and tossed it over to the other side of his neck.

"Hello." Hermione breathed back, "How was your day?"

"Strange," Draco admitted. "The secretaries all tried to jump me."

"Well, your new hair is rather attractive." Hermione said, twirling the mentioned strands between her fingers, admiring how silky and smooth they were for a boy. "I trust you rebuffed them entirely?"

"Escaped out the fire doors." Draco confided his cowardice as he did his best not to purr and lean into her hand as it stroked through his hair to scratch with her nails at his scalp.

"Gertrude?" Hermione asked, smiling. She rather liked the older woman, and fully approved of her disapproving stare as she felt that Gertrude was able to keep Draco under control when she couldn't.

"She led the way!" Draco wailed, cuddling her firmly as he defended himself.

"Yes, dear." Hermione said, stroking the hair behind his ear. "I am sure that you retreated manfully after her, letting a ninety year old lady brave the way for you."

Draco made that noise, the one of a mouse being squished that she had come to know and love because it meant that she won so wonderfully. He gave her a wounded look and complained, "That's not even fair."

"I'm so sorry, who is the Slytherin here?" Hermione raised an eyebrow and Draco's mouth flopped open and closed a few times with no sound coming out. Hermione continued, "I hardly think that you are in the position to argue about fair."

"But you are a Gryffindor, that is not allowed or something." Draco protested, gesticulating wildly as if rapidly moving arms meant validity.

"May be a Gryffindor, but I'm still human. Free will: the ability to make a choice. Peter Pettigrew is, perhaps, the worst traitor in the history of wizardry, and he was a Gryffindor." Hermione lectured, sliding easily into the of-course-I-know-better-than-you-you-pillock voice that she had perfected with Harry and Ron back in school any time they mentioned Apparating into school grounds. "I like to keep my options open."

"I'm sure that running about with Harry and Ron didn't help the direction of your morals much." Draco huffed. "The two of them could justify murder, I swear."

"Fair dues." Hermione agreed, knowing the lengths her friends had gone to in the war for the force of right. They'd always been able to justify what they did as being on the side of good and reason up to and including cursing Draco, Crabbe and Goyle into gelatinous slugs. Draco remembered that quite keenly.

"Well, dear, as much as I love this, there are a few reference books that I have at home that I couldn't find in your library." Draco said, tucking Hermione's hands into her lap. He confessed, "I wanted you to be prepared before I brought a large stack of reference books and excited you with the smell."

"Oh, Draco." Hermione slapped his shoulder playfully. "Truly, I am not so bad."

"Truly, you are." Draco said, smothering his grin in her shoulder. She knocked his head away with the back of her arm and struggled to get up out of his lap to get away from his teasing but a strong arm across her lap forbade her. She wiggled a few moments before giving in to his evil chuckles, swinging her legs where they rested over the side of the squashy chair.

"I thought you had books to get?" Hermione asked, arching an eloquent eyebrow.

"In a Mo." His voice was muffled in her cleavage and there were a few breathless minutes before she managed to escape, thoroughly flustered. He cracked smugly out of her flat and she had a few moments to collect herself before he appeared with what appeared to be an entire library of books. After he was done, Hermione merely let her eyes roll heavenwards, trying to imagine where to put them all and, with a flick of her wrist, they all alphabatized themselves and found snug nooks and crannies to hide in. Draco smiled approvingly and went to go rumple her sheets just to be mean before joining her for dinner.

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AN: Sorry! I've been genuinely distracted by Rose Tyler Earth Defense and finally found a reliable gag for this one. Geez, writing these two is hard work some times...


	4. Day 2

Dealing with Boisterously Irascible Men

Or A Practice so Pleasurable

3/?

Day 2-Morning

"I'm scared to go to work today." Draco admitted baldly, though even if there were ample evidence he would never admit to a receeding hair line. He stood in the middle of her living room clad only in his towel and dripping like a greek proto god that was just coming back from a quick dip in the Aegean. Hermione, genuinely distracted by his naked glory, could only manage,

"Sorry, what?" Her brain was very detached from reality as it traced the path of a drip as it wound it's merry way down the ripples in Draco's abdomen.

"Hermione?" Draco asked, concerned that she was starting to get a glazed look on her face.

"Abdomen!" She exclaimed nervously, rather like a witch with Tourettes.

"What?" Draco asked, completely mystified by his wonderful, if a bit odd, girlfriend.

"What?" She asked, not entirely sure what she had shouted but was sure it was perfectly understandable as well as intelligent. That was the best thing about being so smart, everyone assumed you were smart all the time and had a tendency to overlook when you were making a complete idiot of yourself with your attractive boyfriend.

"Hermione, are you quite well?" Draco inquired politely, coming forward a bit to check her temperature. "I thought I was the one supposed to crack up a bit."

"Don't be ridiculous, Draco." Hermione said breezily after she collected herself while batting away his hand. She gave a nervous laugh and tried very hard not to concentrate on the beautiful muscles no longer marred by silly hair. When he came up close, she could focus on his face, but it made it harder not to reach out and touch them. The biggest problem was that she knew she could reach out and touch them, fondle them even if she cared too, and she would be well within her rights to do so.

And oh how she wanted to exercise that right. But it was not the time, if the place, because it would be far to easy for them to get carried away and be late for work. Hermione did not trust Kingsley's apparation spot to be clean even after one day.

"Hermione?" Draco said, his voice colored with amusement. "Hermione, if your hand gets any closer to my towel, it's coming off and I'm having my way with you right here."

"What about my clothes?" Hermione asked, properly horrified. Draco considered how much damage he'd do to them if he just ripped them off of her and she firmed her lips.

"I'll take you shopping." He conceded, his fingers roaming towards her buttons, intending to rip them open.

"My best blouse? I think not." Hermione said firmly. Draco's fingers roamed even closer at her admonishment and it wasn't until she took a smart step backward that he sighed and decided that it might be in his best interest to let her go. "Well thank Merlin you won't have to, I have to be at work in five minutes."

"Take a day off?" Draco cajoled, attempting to brush her hair behind her ears before getting his fingers stuck in it. After a moment of disentanglement, Hermione gave him a peck on the cheek before Apparating as she turned, with barely a puff of air. Draco made a noise of frustration and picked up his wand before swishing it to summon his clothes from his manor. After dressing himself in his obligatory dress robes, tie included, he left the discarded clothes on Hermione's bed.

He ate his breakfast and guilt drew him back to her room where he stared at the mound of accoutrements piled high as a small mountain and was momentarily distracted by her dresser. Deciding that it wouldn't hurt, he searched through the drawers and noticed that there was some empty space including one whole drawer which contained nothing except a layer of dust. Clucking his tongue at his girlfriend's lack of obsession with clothes, he flipped his hand with a muttered spell and all his clothes sorted themselves, folded and stashed themselves neatly into the drawer so that next time he wouldn't have to wander around in a towel when he took his shower at her apartment. He dallied a bit in the kitchen and then, deciding he'd wasted enough time, slunk into work.

There was a flutter of excitement as he came in the front door, but it was no where near the level of hubbub as the other day. With a sigh of relief, he slid into his office, shutting the door firmly behind him. Gertrude grinned up at him as he entered, snickering behind her withered hand. "Such a little coward."

"Yes, well." Draco fanned himself with one hand as he settled down to his work, winking at the old lady as he slid behind his desk.

"Hermione had a word with you didn't she?" Gertrude asked shrewdly, grinning toothily at him.

"She may have disparaged my manhood in a thoroughly uncharitable manner and distracted me a bit." He thought back to that morning when he rolled over and the first thing that he saw was the curve of her shoulder before he realized that it was attached to something that sounded rather like the revving of one of those giant metal rolling contraptions that the Muggles went about in. He allowed himself to become further distracted when later, after his shower, she was tugging at the collar of her shirt, exposing a thin cord of muscle that vanished into a shapely collarbone and gentle slope of her chest. Draco sighed when he thought of that tantalizing window of flesh. If asked, he would promptly reply that his favorite things in the world were her breasts. Followed closely by her face and trailing in a rather pathetic third was her brilliantly witty intellect. The third lost some ground as he realized that nowadays, her wonderful brain was bent towards making him look like a complete idiot, while her chest and face had no such ulterior motives.

"Please stop thinking about Hermione." Gertrude said, giving him a hard stare over her pince nez, as she shuffled through the papers on her desk.

"Have I neglected to report you to the Unspeakables for being psychic again?" Draco asked, pursing his lips into a frown before nibbling on the nib of his quill.

"You make a funny little sound in the back of your throat whenever you think of her." Gertrude's voice was dripping with scorn as she motioned indelicately towards her throat with wizened hands. "It's quite distracting."

"I hadn't a clue." Draco marveled, thumbing his way through a file. His mouth flapped open and closed for a moment as some previous comments from his friends suddenly made sense. Pansy especially had a look that involved pursed lips and furrowed brows that always made him feel like he were ten years old again when Pansy ground his face into the mud when he made fun of her nose. He then pressed his lips together and stared hard at Gertrude. She lasted quite a while before his burning stare alerted her to his attention and she quirked an eyebrow that reminded him so much of his wonderfully insane woman that he realize sooner than he expected what exactly that sound was. He stopped it immediately and flushed quite red.

"Yes, Malfoy? Did you need something?" Her voice was as dry as her humor that wiggled it's way through her words. The raised eyebrow wiggled a bit and then descended as if it realized that it was distracting him. "Have you got anything to say, at all?"

"No, not particularly." Draco said, plumb forgetting what he had thought he was going to ask in the distraction caused by the gyration of her eyebrows and merely grinned up at her while asking, "Do you think that I will get to sit in Kingsley's chair when Hermione becomes Minister?"

"Knowing you, Draco, that chair will have to be bleached or thrown out after the things that you will manage to get up to." Gertrude sighed, taking a moment between her sorting to rub at her eyes with a wrinkled hand.

"How outrageous!" Draco objected, grinning up at his secretary with his delightful boyish charm in full swing. He paused for a moment before giving a manly giggle and correcting her, "I'd really more aptly say the things I'd get into in that chair."

"Draco, you are quite the exhibitionist, do not for a moment even let me entertain the idea that you may be able to contain yourself when faced with that chair and Hermione." Gertrude gave a funny little snort while she stared hard over her pince nez.

"Huh. True facts." Draco said, popping the file in his mouth in order to hold it while he shuffled some papers around. It effectively muffled his big mouth and stifled their conversation at a tolerable level of awkwardness between them. Considering that he was hearing the stiff, old, Gertrude speculating about the future of his sex life, they had reached an awesome level of awkwardness. He pounced on another sheet of paper and then made a noise full of happiness and glee before bounding towards the door. "Got it!"

"Where are you going?" Gertrude asked, doing that ear wiggle thing that made her glasses slide down her nose to rest on the tip. He saw that hard, calculatingly stern gaze that made him feel like he were four years old and caught by his grandmother with his fingers already in the cookie jar. He had the same reaction as well, he froze, halfway out of the door, with his hand on the doornob.

"I _love_ working for Kingsley!" He said vehemently, before fleeing out the door, his newly mobile hair flowing.

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Reviews are love! And I am not above bribing for love with cookies...


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